The debut full-length from Maryland singer-guitarist Lindsey Jordan is a sign that “indie rock has officially entered its ‘Black Crowes era,’ where young artists refigure music from the decade they were born,” writes Kory Grow. “But that’s not a bad thing here… [Jordan has] packed Lush, her debut full-length, with the same sort of smart lyrics about unrequited love (‘Heat Wave’), personal dissatisfaction (‘Pristine’) and the places where those feelings coalesce (‘Golden Dream’) as her forebears and set them to a soundtrack of chugging, glassy-toned guitar.”
Read Our Review: Snail Mail’s Lush Is The Work of An Indie-Rock Prodigy
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Various Artists, Superfly: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Future’s accompaniment to Director X’s remake of Superfly (which the Atlanta MC co-produced) isn’t as concise a statement on post-millennial criminality as Kendrick Lamar’s Black Panther project was on universal blackness and African identity, and it certainly can’t live up to Curtis Mayfield’s epochal soundtrack to the 1972 original. But this album, which Future studded with guests like Lil Wayne, Miguel, 21 Savage and H.E.R. (with fellow R&B upstart Khalid), has plenty of good moments. Future’s slurry robot croon is so familiar at this point that it’s easy to overlook his ability to kick lyrical game; “Walk on Minks,” where he rhymes to a girlfriend, “Don’t get caught up in your ring finger/We’re gonna spend the cheddar ’til your fingers wrinkle,” is a welcome reminder, while the PartyNextDoor-assisted “No Shame” is a bluesy ode to drug-dealer audacity full of haunting keyboard notes and squalling electric guitar. The final cut, “Nowhere,” continues Future’s unlikely reputation as a lothario who makes enthralling, possibly repentant love songs: “Giving your pussy away girl is gonna fuck up my legacy/Maybe it’s my intuition, could be jealousy,” he raps in a sing-song lilt. “Can’t let you go nowhere.” Mosi Reeves
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Dierks Bentley, The Mountain
The brooding country star returned to higher altitudes while making his ninth album, which was written and recorded in Telluride, Colorado’s lofty Studio In the Clouds. But The Mountain is no rehash of Bentley’s high-flying hit “Drunk On A Plane” – instead, it’s an introspective album that grapples with the low points of everyday existence, even when it’s conjuring mental images of the sun-bleached bacchanalia Burning Man. Bentley’s lightly drawled baritone handles lovelorn pleas (the glum yet fast-talking “Goodbye in Telluride”) and defiant anthems (“You Can’t Bring Me Down,” which balances its stock-taking with “na-na-na”-borne cheekiness and Sam Bush’s deft mandolin playing) equally well, and it braids beautifully with Brandi Carlile’s formidable belt on the clean-slate celebration “Travelin’ Light.” The Mountain closes with “How I’m Going Out,” a slide-guitar-tinged reflection on future endings; it’s full of gratitude for the past while reminding listeners that final moments can trigger new beginnings. Maura Johnston
Read Our Feature: Why Dierks Bentley Had to Leave Nashville to Record The Mountain
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Lily Allen, No Shame
“No Shame, despite its title, is a quiet album,” writes Maura Johnston. “It’s almost like Allen is processing her hangover from the past 12 years in real time, and using delicate piano arpeggios and skittering snares to cushion the blow.”
Read our review: Lily Allen Drops Subtle Truth Bombs On No Shame
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Yob, Our Raw Heart
Album number eight from the Oregon doom-metal outfit “was literally written from a hospital bed while [Yob leader Mike] Scheidt recovered from a ruptured colon, a seizure and a staph infection,” notes Christopher R. Weingarten. “However, Our Raw Heart is no Bergman film. ‘From holes in my gut/To love from miracles,’ he sings on the title track, a 14-minute opus that sounds like Diane Warren wrote a power ballad for sludge hypnotists Neurosis. ‘Lifting off, renewed/Astral form in flight/Enthrall every hue/Unknown to our eyes.’ Our Raw Heart is a gushing affirmation of self… The feel-good deathbed record of the summer.”
Read Our Feature: Harrowing Illness Almost Killed Doom Metal Titans Yob – But Gave Their Work New Life
Read Our Review: Yob’s Our Raw Heart Is Dreamy, Uplifting Doom Metal
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Kadhja Bonet, Childqueen
Another prodigy from the new-school LA scene that’s home to Kendrick Lamar, Kamasi Washington, Flying Lotus and Anderson Paak (whose new LP she worked on), Bonet is a producer-arranger-singer-songwriter who plays every instrument on her lush second LP – a set of transporting, ornately arranged soul music that conjures Minnie Riperton, Stevie Wonder, and crate-digger favorite David Axelrod. The fountain of sky-high vocal notes that caps the single “Mother Maybe” is the most spectacular moment, but the whole album is consistently wow-inducing. Will Hermes
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Serpentwithfeet, Soil
Serpentwithfeet’s influences make him dangerously cool and impossibly contemporary. His debut was co-released on Tri Angle Records, home of Haxan Cloak, Forest Swords and Lotic, as well as a fitting match for his cutting-edge electronics. As a vocalist, his quavering vibrato is trained in opera and classical music, but it’s in tune with the current moment’s Nineties R&B reflection – gushing out somewhere between the exploratory cries of Anohni, the soul-rock croon of Terence Trent D’Arby and the plainspoken wander of Frank Ocean. As a songwriter, the former choirboy pulls melodic influence from traditional gospel music a la Kanye West, Chance the Rapper and others. A fan of Dvorak, Kirk Franklin, Brandy and Björk, the artist, born Josiah Wise, sings love songs that resemble hymns like “Cherubim,” on which he lets loose a flood of emotions as helicopter drones compliment his distended vocals: “I get to devote my life to him/I get to sing like the cherubim… Sowing love into you is my job.” He creates ensembles of his voice, even commanding “Sing, choir!” on “Wrong Tree” while harsh digital silences, stutters and monster growls provide an expressionist counterpoint. Welcome to Ableton and Heartbreak. Christopher R. Weingarten
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Flasher, Constant Image
This D.C.-based trio’s debut has the muscle and melodicism of modern rock’s brainy, brooding pre-grunge era, with guitarist Taylor Mulitz, bassist Daniel Saperstein and drummer Emma Baker singing in fuzzed-out harmony over insistent basslines and crash-bang drums. “Punching Up” is a rainy-day shuffle that plays with textures while indicting modern-day power dynamics, while “XYZ” is a lean distorto-pop jam about 21st-century anomie that ends with a surprise horror-movie fantasia. Maura Johnston
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Jon Hassell, Listening to Pictures
Jon Hassell is his own genre, best known for the sub-oceanic funk of Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics, his 1980 collaboration with polymath Coldplay producer Brian Eno. The framework’s evolved – “Picnic” could be a Flying Lotus jam – but Hassell’s iconic processed trumpet still suggests a call to prayer via Bitches Brew. Will Hermes
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Tomb Mold, Manor of Infinite Forms
Metal fandom really just boils down to the search for a great riff, and Toronto’s Tomb Mold make it easy on their second LP. The crunchy-then-scampering breakdown on “Abysswalker,” the hard-swinging blues-prog stomp that opens “Final Struggle of Selves” – Manor of Infinite Forms is jam-packed with moments of high-five-worthy heaviness. Drummer-vocalist Max Klebanoff’s beastly growls align the group with the death-metal subgenre, but the quartet’s earthy feel and crafty songwriting transcend any particular niche. (The album’s hulking, gorgeously organic mix, courtesy of underground producer extraordinaire Arthur Rizk, is another major plus.) Whatever your poison – Autopsy, Incantation or just good old Slayer and Sabbath – you’ll find plenty to lose your shit to here. Hank Shteamer
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